Safety aspects of nuclear power plant standardization

This paper explains and illustrates how the standardization of French nuclear systems built by Framatome is a key factor governing the safety of the facilities concerned: 1) the quality of the facilities benefits from the concentration of substantial research and manufacturing resources, as a result of which serious defects are likely to be avoided; 2) a collection of Design and Construction Regulations, affecting in particular matters of safety, has been drawn up; 3) an expensive research and development programme can be implemented without dispersal of effort; 4) the numerous checks and commissioning tests carried out on ''identical'' systems and items of equipment make it possible to detect any faults which may occur; 5) substantial resources can be applied to the solution of problems which have been identified. Two examples of such procedures are described, cold over-pressure tests and under-clad cracking of vessel nozzles. (author)